


One Word Inspiration Ficlet Collection

by Elocian



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Multi-Fandom
Genre: Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 10:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13996575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elocian/pseuds/Elocian
Summary: To keep myself writing i posted a prompt- give me a single word and a character and i'll write a short one shot ficlet about it. Decided to keep track of the full collection here. Characters/Fandoms will be added as I go and each chapter will be tagged appropriately.





	1. Sorrow - Gladio FFXV

**Author's Note:**

> Suggested by indognito-doglord
> 
> Parts lightly elude to suicidal thoughts so warning on that just in case.

**\--Sorrow - Gladio--**

There was no one telling him that he should be joyous, no one insisting that this should be a happy occasion and that he shouldn’t be sitting here looking sullen. Probably because anyone who lacked that much sense had been lost in the decade long night.   
  
As the sun rose on Insomnia, there were plenty people that were celebrating the return of the sun and the end of what felt like a ceaseless nightmare. Likewise though, there were plenty that didn’t. The children born in a world of dark, confused as the sky turned bright. The people who had lost far too much and had too little left. The people who still didn’t know if their loved ones had smoldered away into ash, finally knowing peace or if they were still out there somewhere wondering the same questions. The crownsguard, all three of them were in their own ways those same people.   
  
Gladiolus Amicitia was the last person anyone would expect to be found, sitting on the half ruined stairs of the citadel staring lost at the broken gates, but despite that no one questioned him. After all he was close with the departed king.   
  
If only it were just that.   
  
When they found his body, slumped over and lifeless in the throne, Prompto had been the first one to break down, a sobbing blubbering mess, kneeling before his friends body clutching hold of him. They knew, they all knew by then it had to come to this, but that didn’t make it easier. Even after the days that had gone by, he still was taking it the hardest. Ignis, he’d honestly barely seen since the dawn. A hand on his king’s cold shoulder as he forced his back straight, a few tears shed when it was only the three of them but didn’t dare show the world. He didn’t doubt he was around just not wanting to be found for reasons he kept to himself, and Gladio didn’t push it. Then there was Gladio. He didn’t cry, he didn’t mourn- not for Noctis. He did what he had to. Just like Lunafreya had. Just like Regis had. Just like his father had.   
  
At least that's what he tried to tell himself.   
  
‘You were his shield. You were suppose to protect him’   
  
Isn’t that what he did though?   
  
‘What did you do for him? After all Prompto did, after all Iggy gave- what did you do but stand there? Where were you when he needed someone? Always five steps behind the others. Some shield you turned out to be’   
  
“Tch…”   
  
‘Even when you had the chance what did you do? You threw his pain in his face. You just made everything worse. Big man on the block, your dad dies and you act like you don’t care so he has to too. You tell him to get over Luna all for what- so he could go like a good little pig to slaughter without complaining? After ten years, and you still couldn’t even manage an apology-’   
  
Gladio just shook his head and buried his face into his palms. What good was he now? A shield to no king, why was he even still here? Where else did he have to go? Maybe it would be better if-   
  
“Hey!”   
  
The voice calling out caught his attention and he quickly cleared his face as he raised it away from his hands. He hadn’t started crying, not yet but damned if someone was going to think he was. Looking up he recognized the man’s garb as a former glaive but he couldn’t put any name to the face- too many damn people to remember. He came walking up and sat himself down next to Gladio, staring off not unlike him, looking up to the clear blue sky.   
  
“You waiting on someone here too?”   
  
Gladio just stared at him. Was this guy serious? The world was trying to rebuild, no one was coming around the citadel, not right now anyways. Priority was on rebuilding the city and homes. Not an empty castle with no king to rule. Who’d he be waiting on here of all places? Still though he supposed maybe he was doing the same. Waiting on a king that wouldn’t come back, and a father that he never mourned. before he could even fully process the thought he gave an affirming nod. “Yeah.”   
  
His companion just looked at him, with a look that was far too knowing for his liking but at the same time Gladio became all too aware of just how tired he was. Tired of fighting, tired of being on guard, tired of feeling so broken. he nodded back with a noncommittal shrug looking out across the broken and scared city letting out a long sigh.   
  
“Well, if they’re anything like my old pal you might be waiting a while. Thought I might run into him here…” his gaze dropping down, turning his kukri around in his grip staring at it. Gladio knew that look all too damn well. It didn’t need said for him to know it. He’d come here not expecting to leave and here he was. Or maybe that was just his own heart talking. When Noctis lead them to one final fight, when Ignis and Prompto stood at his side and they fought back the armies of daemons the last thing that had been on Gladio’s mind was the sunrise he never expected to live to see. Now that it was here, and so was he- he was lost.   
  
“Though I guess since he’s not here- I may as well start getting ready without him. I told him there’d be a party waiting for him back in Galahd. Got some clean up to do out that way before that can happen though.” He stood giving Gladio a firm hand on the shoulder as he did so, looking back to him staring at him almost expectantly. “Could use some help, if you don’t have anything better to do.”   
  
He laughed. All Gladio could do was laugh. He didn’t even notice the tears that finally fell after all of this time. No, no he didn’t mourn Noctis - he had ten goddamn years to do that. His dad...not him either. A part of him, messed up as it was grew up mourning him. Knowing your whole life that your family’s purpose was to die for someone else and here you are and there they were, no he was mourning himself.   
  
“Afraid not. I think...I think they’d kick my ass if I left the place looking like this.” he might of been lost, without a purpose but hell- so was everyone else. What a hypocrite he’d be if everything he told Noctis about moving on and stop feeling sorry for yourself and all that crap if he just gave up now? “Maybe I’ll come by some other time.”   
  
“If you insist. You come by tell them Libertus sent you by- there’ll be a drink waitin for ya.”   
  
Finally standing up and brushing himself off Gladio nodded, watching as the glaive already headed off. Here was hoping both of their friends kept them waiting a good while before they came by- both of them had a lot to do before they came.

.


	2. Pudding - Ardyn FFXV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by TheChocoBen
> 
> Mild Body Horror

****

**\--Pudding - Ardyn--**

  
  
It was a well documented fact in Nifelheim that the chancellor had an insatiable sweet tooth. So much so that there were murmurs and whispers that the entire reason for the Tenebrae occupation was so he could own every harvest of Ulwaat Berries that they had. Now, he would never give credence to such a ridiculous notation that he’d conquer an entire region JUST to satisfy a longing for a decent tart, but when alone he may quietly admit to himself that it might have been a deciding factor in the time of year they came and his insistence that as little damage be done as possible to the region.    
  
  
Despite this fact though, there was one dessert, one confection one blasted infernal sweet that went beyond simply a dislike and skipped straight into an absolute stomach turning, nausea inducing intolerance of the mere sight of. The taste, the texture, the very sight of it was enough to make him feel ill. Of all the things one might imagine it was the simplest of all treats that made Ardyn sick to even think of putting anywhere near his mouth - and that was pudding. It was a discovery made at a formal dinner that much of the nations elite was at- one that Ravus didn’t let go unnoticed and since had made it a point to antagonize at every opportunity he had, any victory against the man was one of worth for as much of a nightmare as he was any other time.  
  
  
The reason in particular was one that Ardyn never divulged nor even personally cared to think about at the risk of growing queasy at the very thought of it. No it wasn’t the time as a small child he ate far far too many sweets and was sick in bed for two days- that was his own stupidity and while he couldn’t look at anything remotely sugary for a few weeks after he eventually got over it. No it wasn’t the time Somnus mixed crushed up Gyshal Greens into his desert and he puked at the royal banquet either. No the reason was far more visceral than anything so childish.  
  
  
It was early into his damnation. Having just drug himself out of imprisonment, it was before he’d completely accepted what had happened, or what he had become. Still so naive, still so foolish he mused to himself thinking back on it. Even after all they had done to him, even after what Ifrit’s messenger Nadir had shown him, he still sought to do something to help them. Even if they had turned their backs on him these...it had been so long ago. Somnus was long dead, his own name long forgotten he couldn’t just condemn them for what had happened. Oh what a bleeding heart optimist he was, looking back on it was pathetic.  
  
  
That was the way of it though. So as it was, when he first found that child, a scrawny scrap of a thing that had no right surviving whatever had brought the rest of the town to ruin he did what he could to save him. He could see the black clotting at the corner of his eyes, he could feel how heavy the poor child’s pulse was. The plague, the scourge- no that shouldn’t be possible. He’d taken it unto himself. It was the one solace he had. If he were to be cast out by heaven and earth- then at least, at the very least- so too was this wretched curse. Why was it here? Why did it still spread? He didn’t have time to entertain the possibilities, not when such precious life precariously hung in the balance.   
  
  
Fate however, remained cruel, the child’s soul too far gone to be cured. He could take him to civilization but then what? The boy would turn and not only would his life be lost but so many others possibly. So the accursed did all he could for the fallen youth and remained with him. No life could be so miserable that one should die alone, even if it was a monster like himself - it was better than no one at all. He held onto the child, cradling him against the dark as he cried out in agony as the scourge spread through his veins and festered his skin. He did what little he could do to comfort the dying, though perhaps death would have been a blessing over this. This poor thing, he could feel the heat of fever radiating off of him, and even that he was powerless to assuage. He closed his eyes whispering a prayer to the gods who did not listen for him any longer, in some desperate hope that for this poor souls sake they’d show some pity- it wasn’t the boy’s fault that a daemon was all he had left to mourn him.   
  
  
It was a clutching hand reaching out to him grabbing his face that brought him back to the real world, a hand that he thought was simply smeared over with the blackened sludge of what the scourge had devoured away from the poor souls body. No what the truth of it was, was something far worse. Flesh and skin melted and dripping off of half dissolve bone. What remained of a hand, more like a viscous slime that struggled to keep its shape grabbing him forcing him to look down at his face just in time to see an eye sink into the sludge that once made a face.   
  
  
It was idiotic really. Possibly the worst thing he could have done given his position. But when you have the gelatinous remains of what was once a young child suddenly globbed up on you, it was HARDLY irrational for Ardyn who at the time was still trying to cling to some thread of humanity to be startled. When startled people had a nasty habit of screaming.   
  
  
Ardyn couldn’t really say what it was, or even if it was only one thing. The fact that it was the first time he channeled the dark magic of the daemons on purpose to blast the creature away from himself in his fright? The fact that immediately after he watched as the magic he used to defend himself hastened the transformation and thus became the first victim he had in some capacity with purpose turned into a daemon. The fact that when he screamed the infernal things clutches got deep into his mouth and half down his throat and to this day he still couldn’t forget the rancid taste of a burned rotted corpse liquefied into the hellish miasma in his mouth…  
  
  
He lost the contents of his stomach after that and if he ever looked at anything remotely resembling that wretched  creature he’d do so again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay seriously not sure how i managed to take a prompt about freakin Pudding and make it depressing, this was originally going to be comedic but my brain decided it was having none of that.  
> For those curious the SPECIFIC species of Pudding/Flan daemon I had in mind for this was the Crème Brûlée which in particular looks fleshy in its artwork (kinda bring pink in game but i digress) and is fire/electric based hence the fever and burning

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the original post if anyone is interested in adding suggestions though i've got a bit of a sizable list already so it might take some time to get down to it: http://kuraga-den.tumblr.com/post/171942889065/looking-for-inspiration


End file.
